It's a familiar truism that at any one moment, financial markets are dominated by either fear or greed. But the healthiest markets are those that are animated by both fear and greed at the same time.

The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits.

Flexible supply chains are great for multinationals and consumers. But they erode already thin profit margins in developing-world factories and foster a pell-mell work environment in which getting the order out the door is the only thing that matters.

The U.S. is excellent at importing cheap products from the rest of the world. Let's try importing some human capital instead.

The world's central banks and the International Monetary Fund still have vaults full of bullion, even though currencies are no longer backed by gold. Governments hold on to it as a kind of magic symbol, a way of reassuring people that their money is real.

Most of the work on multitasking suggests that it generally makes you less efficient, not more.

Companies, like people, don't much like to change.